The Cheese Fry has been doing a lot a reading since January 1, possibly because we've been doing more traveling than usual and nothing goes better with plane rides and quiet hotel rooms than a book. Here's some one-line reviews.
Challenger, Adam Higginbotham - Top-notch exploration of the 1986 shuttle explosion (they knew about the O-ring problems for years but bureaucratic paralysis kept them from ever addressing it) from the same author who wrote the similarly powerful Midnight in Chernobyl.
Eruption, Steve Olson - A detailed, if brief, account of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption that apparently needed to add in long-winded history of the American logging industry to bulk up the page count.
Live from New York, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales - An excruciatingly thorough - and ultimately repetitive - oral history of "Saturday Night Live" that eventually wore us out with unending praise for the genius of Lorne Michaels.
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick - It took us a while to realize that, rather than a high concept sci-fi spy thriller like the Amazon series adaptation, this is more of a moody relationship drama that just happens to take place in a world where the United State lost World War II.
60 Songs to Explain the 90s, Rob Harvilla - A deliciously nostalgic andquirky trip down 1990s pop culture through the lens of popular music.
The Song Is You, Megan Abbott - While it's got an interesting seedy noir premise - 1950s Hollywood fixer gets wrapped up in the case of a missing actress - it's one of the few books that has gone right into our giveaway stack rather than on our shelf.
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel - A memorable mix of poetic literary style (although we didn't fully understand the comic book subplot) and post-apocalyptic suspense that ends on a supremely satisfying note as multiple plotlines converge in unexpected ways.
Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins - The entertaining prequel story of the Hunger Games experience of Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson in the movies), a much more deserving protagonist than Collins' last novel that weirdly spent 300 pages telling us how President Snow turned heel.
Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer - A dense, engrossing textbook-style look at the minutia (food, law and order, household chores, clothing) of life in 1300s England. For example, the water was so so dirty that, unless you captured rainwater in a cistern, you mostly drank ale all day every day.
Wake Me After the Apocalypse, Jordan Rivet - There's a whole lot of post-apocalyptic YA fiction out there that incongruously layers teen romance onto tragic end-of-the-world stories and, if done right like this one, we are there for it.
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